Know Thy Enemy, Know Thy Self
by Gerardain
Summary: To those who asked why, Kim gives the answer. Part of the Morality's Choice Universe.


Standard Disclaimer : Disney owns Kim Possible, all it's characters, locations and other such stuff.

_**Kim Possible: Morality's Choice - **__**Know Thy Enemy, Know Thy Self.**_

"You can begin whenever you want Miss Possible."

Kim closed her eyes. For some reason she always found it easier to begin if she didn't have to look initially.

"My parents always told me the world was a good and just place and that the people in it just needed someone to help them when they fell down. It's why I became a hero, because I wanted to help people, because good people deserve to be helped."

Kim shifted slightly and looked down toward her feet.

"Actually, that's a lie. I didn't choose to become a hero. Don't get me wrong, I always thought the world was a good place but the truth is I was just a girl who was more interested in friends and fitting in at school then saving anyone. Becoming a hero…that was an accident. All I really wanted was some more baby sitting jobs so I could have some extra cash, but then the whole event with Mr. Paisley happened and everything changed."

"And you went along with it?"

Kim looked up at the woman who sat across from her and gave the woman a slightly rueful smile.

"They just kept asking and I couldn't….I couldn't say no, it wasn't who I was. And secretly I think I liked it when they cheered for me. It felt nice to see people need me, to see them really want me."

Kim's tone shifted slightly as she continued.

"It wasn't everything I had expected though. I met my first real bad guys on these missions. They weren't good people who were just down on their luck or who were having a hard time in their life, these were honestly bad people who seemed to take joy in the misery they were causing. It was something I didn't understand at the time, how could people be like that? My mom and dad had told me even in a good world there could be bad people, but I had always thought of it as more of an abstract concept, something that I understood existed but not what it really meant. Bad to me meant sneaking out after curfew or lying or even stealing, not holding a gun to someone's head and threatening to pull the trigger or wiring a bus load of children with explosives to get the mayor to do what you wanted . It was a hard lesson to learn but I adjusted, and I learned that that was how I had to look at the world. As still a good place, but now I had to categorize people in it. Was this man good? Was this woman bad?."

Kim paused and looked at the woman for some sign of understanding in what she was saying, but the woman's face simply remain impassive so Kim continued.

"Still, I adjusted, I understood. The good guys were good, the bad guys were bad, that's how it really worked…"

Kim trailed off so the woman spoke.

"You don't sound sure of that."

Kim shook her head slightly.

"I was wrong, I thought I understood but I didn't. I was still trying to force the world to fit into my view."

Kim took a deep breath.

"Even as I thought that was how the world really worked it kept trying to prove me wrong. I would go on a mission and see the scientist I was there to help had had his plans for a super weapon stolen, or I would get called in by a general to save the army's billion dollar mind control chip."

Kim looked hard at the woman.

"What kind of good world lets people create mind control chips? It's someone's mind for gods sake and all they can do is try and find a way to control it, to make the person do what they want…and these are the good guys."

Kim looked down again.

"I once rescued a group of hostages from a hospital. A man had been holding them hostage, demanding the city pay him 80,000 dollars. Do you know why he wanted it? I didn't…I never even thought to ask, I just thought 'He's the villain, I'm the hero, I'm going to stop him.' I found out later he wanted the money so he could afford an operation for his son who was dying. The hospital had refused to operate because he didn't have any insurance and the procedure was so expensive that he didn't have any hope of being able to pay for it."

Kim's tone took on a bitter tint.

"Every time something like that happened, every time I saw the good guys do something that wasn't good or found a bad guy that didn't seem that bad, I just closed my eyes. It didn't fit with how the world was, good guys were always supposed to be good, bad guys were always supposed to be bad, so what could I do? I chose to ignore anything that didn't fit, that didn't conform to that belief. Anytime I had qualms about what I saw, or felt bad for what had happened, I ignored it. A hero helps the good, they don't weep for the bad."

The woman's tone remained cool and unchanged as she spoke. Kim was finding it rather enjoyable and annoying at the same time.

"There must have been a lot to ignore. It's obvious now that you don't feel that was anymore, so what happened?"

Kim gave a small but hard laugh.

"The truth caught up with me. Ron was with me through everything, he was the one person I thought I could always rely on no matter what. If there was ever a person in the world that I thought was living proof of good he was it, but I was wrong. He had always been a bit…silly, some would call it juvenile I guess, but it was part of why I liked him. He made me laugh and I thought…."

Kim trail off again, unable to find the right words to continue. Neither women spoke during the silence until finally Kim continued.

"We ended up finding feelings for each other, and for a while everything was good. But then it was like…Ron became a parody of himself. He started being even more childish and oblivious. I loved him but it was hard…every time I thought he was learning to grow up and be more adult he'd take a giant step backwards. I gave everything I had to our relationship. I tired to make it work, I tried to make Ron be the kind of man I knew he could be, the kind I saw inside him in our quiet moments, but its like he fought me all the way."

The woman interjected.

"This is where Shego comes in?"

"No…Yes…it's complicated. Shego and I had a strange history. I would go out on missions to stop Dr. Drakken from some take over the world plot and there she would be, always ready to fight me tooth and nail so Dr. Drakken could succeed. She never won…but with Shego I don't think was about winning. I think…no, I know she stuck with him because of me. She told me she looked forward to our fights, it was the only time she really got to cut loose and the weird thing is I think I did to. Despite everything she ever did, despite every bruise and broken bone she ever gave me, I didn't hate her. I think I actually secretly kind of respected her, deep down. I wouldn't admit it to myself, she was the bad guy, she was evil, she was constantly trying to kill me, but on some level I knew I respected her and I knew she respected me. It was like…we had a weird kind of trust."

"I see. And how does she tie in with what happened to Mr. Stoppable?"

Kim met the woman's eyes. She didn't want to look away for this part, she needed to see just what the woman would do, what effect her words would have.

"There was an incident a couple of years ago….Shego became a good guy again for a while and I didn't know it at the time, but she had seen something during that time that started everything. There was this other cheerleader at my high school named Bonnie Rockwaller. We had been in the same classes since nearly kindergarten, always been rivals. I always saw her as kind of stuck up and harsh but knew there had to be a good person under everything else she was. She evidently didn't hold the same opinion of me because she spent the whole time we knew each other treating me like crap. She would constantly insult me or put me down, she took every chance she got to humiliate me. When she was captain of our cheer team she always made sure to give me the hardest most difficult routines and when I became captain? She did everything she could think of try and knock me down so she could take my place. She was just as bad to Ron too which is why I still don't understand how it happened, but somehow, some way, Ron and Bonnie began dating. This was while Ron was still in a relationship with me mind you, while he was still saying he loved me. It turned out every time he would storm off after some childish act he would go right to her and….and I don't even want to think about what they did."

Kim took a moment to catch her breathe and calm herself before the anger she could feel rising found it's way into her tone.

"Shego saw them though…she saw them kissing one day while she was teaching at our school. She said that even while she was good it made her want to do bad things and honestly, part of me wishes she had been able to. Maybe then they would have learned, maybe then I wouldn't have had to find out in front of the whole school when I walked in on them in the middle of the obviously deep and meaningful kiss, in the cafeteria, in front of everyone."

Kim looked momentarily regretful as she spoke.

"Shego tried to warn me that it was happening, but I didn't listen to her. I thought she was lying, that's what bad guys do after all, they lie. Even after I found out that she was telling the truth I still tried to blame her. I was so angry and hurt and I needed someone to take it out on and I thought if Shego had known before I did that it meant she must have been responsible, she must have done something to them. Ron wasn't….he wasn't supposed to be like everyone else, he was supposed to be all good. So I lied to myself and said it was Shego's fault. I didn't want to admit that I had been wrong about Ron, about everything. Even as I was fighting her though she tried to get me to listen. She kept saying she had only been trying to help but I was just so angry that I wouldn't hear anything but what I wanted her to say, that it was her fault. She got away…she always did…and it was only then that I realized what she had been saying, that she hadn't been lying, not before and not then. She wasn't responsible for what happened."

Kim maintained her lock on the woman's eyes, still searching for some reaction as she continued, her tone growing softer.

"It broke me….everything I had ever seen, all the tortures I had endured and that was what finally broke me. I couldn't take the pain of having Ron do that to me, of having him still lie to me by not telling me…and I still couldn't understand the concept of Shego telling the truth, so I hid in my room. I wanted the whole world to just go away, it was all to hard to deal with anymore. I couldn't close my eyes to this, I couldn't ignore it, but my friends wouldn't let me be. They convinced me to try and get my mind off of what had happened by doing a mission. As it turned out it was the best thing I could have done because Shego was waiting for me there…and of course we fought at first. Someone people say hello, Shego and I…fight. It didn't last though, my heart wasn't into hating her, not after what she had tried to do. Before we even really got started talking though she railed into me. What I was feeling…what I wanted to do…Shego knew that it was all crap. What she said that night hurt but it also woke me up. I was trying to hide from the pain when I should have been using it. I was letting everything Kim Possible teen hero had become to trap me into forgetting that I was more then just some icon, some hero, that I was human. I was allowed to feel angry, to feel rage at what Ron and Bonnie had done. A hero wasn't supposed to given into what they felt but why not? Why is it alright for some people to act and others have to stand bye all because of a title or a name? What made my pain any less valid then anyone elses?"

Despite everything she had been saying, Kim still saw no reaction from the women, her eyes simply remained equally impassive as her voice always seemed. Kim sat back and relaxed slightly as she continued.

"I almost killed Shego once…I kicked her into a high voltage tower because I thought, THOUGHT, she had stolen a boy from me who turned out to be a stupid syntho-drone and yet here I was wallowing in self pity because of something bad that had actually happened. I had thought that being angry at Ron and Bonnie…that hating them was wrong because I was a good guy and hate and anger weren't things good guys felt, but right then, right at that moment that night I made a choice. If I had to choose between being a hero who let her heart get broken, who let the good guys get away with it because they were the good guys, or standing up for myself, taking out my anger on the two people who deserved it, then I was done with being a hero. I had built my life around knowing who was good and who was bad and all it had gotten me was pain and humiliation, so right then I decided that I was done with it. Shego was right, it was about control. I had lost it to a stupid belief about who I should be and I needed to get it back, starting with showing two people what a mistake they had made."

Kim let out a deep sigh. She hadn't known what she was going to say when she had started but now it all seemed to come pouring out, as if it had always needed said.

"I went after Bonnie first. I guess I was always looking for a reason to pay her back for the years of torment and that's why I choose her to start with instead of Ron, or maybe I didn't want to face him yet. I honestly don't know and at this point it doesn't matter. It wasn't hard to get her, all it took was playing to her ego and she walked right into her cage."

"I said I never understood how the bad guys could do what they do, but that night I understood. Having her fate in my hands, know that I was the one who was making her scream and beg and cry, it felt…right. After everything she had ever done to me I earned that enjoyment and I reveled in it. I should have known though that it wouldn't last. The minute I start to change the way things work the world came to swing them back. First Ron showed up and when he wouldn't leave we fought. And then, just as I was about to win, Global Justice…"

Kim paused, as if deciding something, before continuing.

"The old Global Justice…appeared and tried to stop me. Everything I had done for the world, all the people I had saved and all without asking anything in return, and they wouldn't let me have this one thing. Bonnie and Ron had earned it, they needed to see that what they did wasn't OK, that I wasn't going to let them just get away with it, but no. Betty Director herself came to stop me, came to put me away for refusing to live be their rules anymore. They were the ones in control so things had to be done their way or you were taken out of the game. I tried to explain it, tried to make them see but all they did was try and shove me back into their mold, so I would fit in their world. It wasn't going to happen, I wouldn't go back to the way it was so she had her men attack me. I fought them all, fought with everything I had but it wasn't enough, there were to many…I wasn't strong enough…I couldn't….I had been what they wanted for so long I couldn't win."

The woman spoke just as Kim paused.

"Did it seem strange to fight the people you once helped? Was it hard?"

Kim considered the question.

"I didn't think of them like that. They weren't the people I used to help, they were the people who were stopping me from being who I wanted to be. They were the ones who made it their fight, they were the ones who decided to try and push me back down just when I was standing up. What happened to them was their own fault."

The women nodded

"I see. Very well, continue."

"I didn't want to run, I didn't want to leave Ron and Bonnie to recover, to think that they were safe from what they had done, but If I had stayed they would won. So I ran, I ran away from everything I was and who should I run directly into but Shego."

The woman interjected.

"Why was Shego there?"

Kim shrugged.

"I don't know. At the time I thought she had been the one that had called Global Justice but later I realized how stupid that was. Maybe she had been following me…maybe it really was like she said and it was just a coincidence, but whatever the reason I'm glad she was there. She was an escape, from Global Justice and from who I used to be, and I used her knowing what it meant to do so."

The woman chose that moment to speak

"And you have no regrets about going with her?"

Kim's reply came almost the instant the woman finished asking the question

"Not for a moment. It was all different after Shego…I was different. She taught me how to be who I needed to be in order to win the fight."

Kim smiled slightly as she continued.

"We started out as we always had but as things changed, we changed. I love her…really love her, and I know she feels the same way. It was only because of her that I was able to finally finish what I had started with Ron and Bonnie, that I was able to reach the heights I am at today."

Kim's smile faded and she looked wistful for a moment but soon shook it off.

"I had to make hard choices to get here, I had to do things I wouldn't have been able to do with out her beside me, but it was worth with…is worth it. We are making a better world, one where no one has to worry about going through the pain I had to. A world that really is as good as it should have been."

"What does your family think about everything you've done?"

Kim's tone wavered slightly as she spoke.

"My family….they wouldn't have understood why I had to do what I've done. It's not as black and white as they always thought, but when I'm done…when the world is better, they'll…they'll understand. When I can show them how I've saved the world from itself, made it what they always taught me it was, then they'll understand. "

The woman nodded.

"Tell me more about what became of Ron and Bonnie."

Kim's eyes darkened and her face, just for a moment, grew angry at the thought of the pair.

"I showed them the pain I felt. This world isn't meant for them, so I removed them from it."

"So, in simpler terms…"

"I killed them. If your expecting me to feel sorry or ashamed for having done it then you'll be waiting a long time because I'm not. All they did in the end was cause pain and I wasn't going to let them live long enough to ruin the world."

The woman's tone was not accusing as she spoke, yet to Kim it felt as if she was still being judged.

"Rather a harsh thing to say about a boy who was your friend most of your life and who you said you loved."

"Who Ron was in the past didn't stop him from what he did with Bonnie, if he was willing to throw away everything we had for her then why should I waste a moment of regret on him? It doesn't matter who we were, it only matter who we are. I made my choice just like he did and no amount of sorry can ever fix what he did."

"I see. Very well Miss Possible, I believe we are done."

Kim nodded and stood up and stretched, doing he best to calm herself down.

"Shego said to trust you so I will, but if you ever give me any reason to doubt that trust…"

The rest of the sentence went unsaid but the woman gave every indication she understood the implications of Kim's statement. It was not until Kim turned and left the room that the woman exhaled loudly as if she had been holding her breathe the entire time.

- - - - -

The woman took the open seat across from Shego's desk and relaxed her posture slightly. Shego surveyed the woman with a careful eye before speaking.

"Your alive so I assume everything went well?"

The woman knew Shego's statement was not meant as anything but what she had said and she nodded.

"You were correct Shego. Miss Possible is everything you told me she was. She has rather a…colorful history if you don't mind me saying.

Shego looked bemused.

"That's one way to say it."

"You came up a lot Shego. She says she loves you and that you're the reason she's able to do what she does."

Shego placed her elbows on her desk and leveled her eyes at the woman.

"What we mean to each other is not your concern."

The woman looked taken aback for a moment.

"I didn't mean to imply anything by it, I was simply stating what she told me. She said you taught her how to be what she needed to be to get this far, so my question is Shego, how did you do it? How did you make Kim Possible teen hero, into that?"

Shego's gaze went dark and her eyes drilled daggers into the woman who sat across from her.

"I never made her anything. Every step of the way Kim had a choice in what she did and she made every choice herself. The Kim you see today only exists because she chose to be who she really is and was strong enough to endure what it took to become it. I may have put her on the cliff's edge but she chose to take the first step off of it."

"And as she fell?"

"As she fell I taught her how to be hard enough to survive the sudden stop at the end. I took all that anger and rage she had and drowned her in it until she was strong enough to pull herself above it and use it. She hates them you know, even now, the doofus sidekick and the cheerleader. I may have helped her forge her anger into a hate that is seared into her soul but she was the one who branded herself, not me, so don't ever say I made her anything. She chose to become this and that's why I stand beside her, because she made the hard choice and she's better for it."

The woman nodded. Shego was always a more directly dangerous person to deal with then anyone else she had ever known.

"You and she carry quite a secret Shego, how do you live with it? How does it never get out?"

Shego's face became impassive as she spoke.

"Because we are the only two that know the whole truth."

Shego's eyes glazed slightly as a memory played in her mind, as if triggered by the words she had just spoken.

:Some time ago:

Drakken stared intently at the clock. The deadline was fast approaching. Any minute now the governments of the world would call to declare him the undisputed ruler of the planet. Thanks to his latest doomsday invention everything he had ever wanted was about to come true and best of all Kim Possible to busy running Global Justice to stop him. He let out a loud villainous laugh in celebration of his good fortune, both of which were cut short as the metal doors leading out of the lair suddenly buckled inward before flying forward and landing just a few feet away from the doorway. He had barely a moment to register what had happened when a squad of heavily armed soldiers flooded the room and leveled each of their weapons directly at him. It was not the men though that brought the sudden tinge of fear to the base of his spine, it was the angry voice that echoed from just beyond the doorway and the body that followed it.

"DRAKKEN!"

Shego strode into the room in full confidence, making a direct line for her former employer.

"Shego? What's going on here? Who are these men?"

Shego shouldn't have been surprised at the question given her history with him, but even she hadn't expected him to be that far removed from the current state of the world.

"Listen very carefully Dr. D. I am here on behalf of Global Justice. You are here by under arrest for acts of terrorism and I've been ordered to take you in."

Drakken paused to consider what Shego had said but his confused look remained.

"What are you talking about Shego? Since when do you work for Global Justice?"

Shego let out a grunt of disbelief.

"Listen Doc, I'm going to make this as simple as possible. Do you surrender or not?"

Drakken struck his best villainous pose.

"Dr. Drakken never surrenders."

Shego gave a wicked smirk as she lit one hand and held it inches from his face. Drakken gave a nervous squeak as he spoke.

"Of course I'm always open to new experiences. If you'll just give me one moment to…"

Drakken reached into his coat pocket and quickly pulled out a tiny remote.

He stuck out his tongue as he spoke.

"Sorry Shego, no time to be arrested, I have a world to conquer you know."

So saying he pressed a button on the remote and the tile he had been standing on shot up like an elevator, carrying him to the upper level of the lair. Shego gave a angry growl and turned to one of the men.

"Have your men cover all the ground exits. I'm going up after him."

Shego gripped the base of the pole that now supported the tile and climbed quickly up it, flipping onto the floor of the upper level as she got near enough. Just ahead of her, down a hallway, she heard Drakken muttering to himself as he ran. Shego quickly gave chase, only to find herself face to door with a thick door, behind which she could hear Drakken confidently yelling.

"It's no use Shego. Not even your vaunted plasma can cut through that. It's a special metal I made just incase I needed…"

He gave a startled yell and Shego dropped down from above, the cover of the air vent she had just crawled through giving a slight squeak as it swung back and forth.

"Not a smart move Doc. I warned you about those didn't I? How do you think Kimmy always got in."

Shego pressed a button on the wall and the previously shut door slid open as Drakken fell to the floor.

"Oh Please Shego you can't do this."

"Not my choice Doc, Princess's orders. Were making a new world and I'm afraid your not invited into it."

Drakken gave a harsh reply.

"Since when do you care what little miss teen hero says?"

"Since we work together DOY! Who do you think I left you for?"

Drakken looked as if it was indeed news to him

"You mean…"

Shego gave a frustrated yell.

"Yes! I left you to rule the world with Kimmy and you know what? She's actually going to do it unlike you. All your plans and failed inventions and it turns out all you really need to do to rule the world is have the right player on your team."

Drakken was close to tears by this point.

"What's going to happen to me Shego?"

"Don't know, don't care. If your lucky she'll kill you quickly, if your not…well lets just say I've seen what happens when she gets really mad and it's not pretty."

Drakken lost all pretense at that statement and began blubbering.

"Shego…..how can you do this to me? We were an evil family…."

Shego rubbed the sides of her head. She hated dealing with him when he was like this. It was just…pathetic.

"After everything we've been through…"

Shego looked down at the blubbering man who had once been her boss. There lay not a great blue villain but a tiny sad sack of a man who was a bluster and no bite. Shego growled her the words.

"Get up"

Drakken sniffled and stood, his body still shaking as he sobbed softly. Shego grabbed his blue coat and pulled forcefully, ripping it off his body.

"Now run"

Drakken looked momentarily confused.

"What?"

Shego's gaze grew dark and fierce as she lit her hand and held it against his coat.

"I said RUN, and if anyone ever, EVER, sees you again, if I ever hear even the slightest rumor about someone with blue skin, if you in any way let anyone know your still alive I promise you I will find you and make you wish I hadn't been as nice as I'm being"

Drakken's eyes lit up with delight and he stumbled backwards out of the doorway toward his secret escape hatch.

"Oh thank you Shego. I promise I'll disappear, you'll never hear the name Dr. Drakken again."

Drakken yelped as Shego threw a few quick plasma balls after him to hurry his escape. She looked over his iconic jacket, which was now smoldering and burnt severely, and began walking back toward the men she had brought with her. As far as the world would know Dr. Drakken was killed trying to escape from Shego, and as far as Kim would know…Shego gave a silent prayer as she walked that Drakken really did disappear because if Kim ever found out she had let him go instead of bringing him in…well she didn't really want to think about what Kim would do honestly because she knew what it meant.

:Present day conversation:

Shego shook herself back to reality and noticed the woman had said something in reply that she hadn't heard.

"Pardon?"

The woman looked quizzical for a moment but repeated herself.

"Well it's three now, though you know I would never tell anyone."

Shego gave a dark grin.

"Oh I am quite sure you wouldn't. Still.."

Shego pressed a button on her desk and two well muscled uniformed men walked in.

"Take our guest her to my private holding cell until I have time to better deal with her."

The woman suddenly looked quite terrified.

"What?"

"I'm sorry but you know the truth, and the truth is you know to much. I can't have that story getting out."

The woman struggled as the two men pulled her up harshly from her seat.

"How can you do this to me? After what I did for you...You said she needed me."

Shego nodded as the woman was dragged out of the room.

"She did. As practice."


End file.
